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Imperator Fyron said:
But consider that continuous time is, in fact, the ultimate extension of phased initiative systems; each "phase" lasts milliseconds.
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Agreed. As the resolution of the grid gets greater and the time increment represented by an impulse gets shorter, you arrive at "real-time".
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Imperator Fyron said:
The more complex turn-based initiative systems tend to be a chore to play, not too much fun.
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I don't know about that. Too many people have been playing too much SFB for too many years (~30 now) for that charge to stick. The big problem with it is that the level of detail is too great to represent large fleet actions as required for most 4Xers. However, just taking its impulse movement concept doesn't require the taking the rest of it. The root of it is an "impulse" is just a mini-turn, and instead of differentiating by speed how many hexes/squares you move per "turn" it differentiates by speed how many "turns" you have to wait between moves. That eliminates the "missile dance". The other aspect of it was that you pre-plot your moves for the turn (in this case turn referring to a fixed number of impulses, not an individual impulse). Adapted to reducing micromanagement in a computerized version, this could just mean ordering a speed and end point for the formation, which in essense is how the move orders in SEV's tactical combat system work now. That could be combined a la "Steel Panthers" with the possibility to give weapon firing orders by range for individual weapons. Toss in a little more computerized intelligence and you could just order a formation to close to a certain range on a designated enemy formation and engage it with a certain weapon. It can be done in "real-time" or proportional turn-based, 2D or 3D - doesn't matter.
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Imperator Fyron said:
Something simple like Moo2 (with 1.31 patch) could have worked, but why stop with such a limited system?
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Certainly I would not consider the MOO2 system ideal. However, MOO evolved from a grand-strategic 4X board game in which combat was just a die rolling excercise (no tactical movement). SE evolved from a tactical space combat board game that acquired a 4X grand-strategic outer game only after establishing itself as a successful tactical gaming franchise (the first strategic rules for it were the second expansion product). So, one would expect more in the way of a tactical game from a new SE than from a new MOO (at least I would).